Yeah, it's that time again. The fourth concert in the Symphonic series by the WDR Radio Orchestra Cologne.

Made a thread for Symphonic Fantasies in 2009, some of you might remember that...hopefully. =p
Fantasies was a tribute to Square-Enix with 4 symphonic suites (Kingdom Hearts, Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger/Chrono Cross and Final Fantasy), each over 15 minutes long.

After last year's Symphonic Legends focused on Nintendo, this one will be a tribute to Nobuo Uematsu with music from Final Fantasy (naturally), Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon, Chrono Trigger and The Last Story.
Apparently Final Fantasy makes up about half of the concert with a new 15-minute suite as well as a couple of standalone songs.
Aaaaaand of course Uematsu will be attending the concerts as well.

Arnie Roth will be conducting again because he's like, married to Uematsu or something.

Two concerts will be held in Cologne, Germany on the 9th of July at 3pm and 8pm CET.
And just like before there will be a livestream of the concert (8pm CET) here:

I'd recommend to watch it (either live or on youtube as someone's bound to record and upload it ) because those concerts are always, well, awesome.
I'll be attending it next Saturday and can hardly wait for it

“When I was twelve, I milked my eel into a pot of turtle stew.
I flogged the one-eyed snake, I skinned my sausage, I made
the bald man cry into the turtle stew, which I do believe my
sister ate. At least, I hope she did.” -Tyrion Lannister
“The management is very bad. In fact, let’s not mince words: The management is terrible!
We’ve had a string of embezzlers, frauds, liars, and lunatics making a string of catastrophic
decisions. This is a plain fact. But who elected them? It was you! You who appointed these
people! You who gave them the power to make your decisions for you! While I’ll admit that
anyone can make a mistake once, to go on making the same lethal errors century after
century seems to me nothing short of deliberate. You have encouraged these malicious
incompetents, who have made your working life a shambles. You have accepted without
question their senseless orders. You have allowed them to fill your workspace with dangerous
and unproven machines. You could have stopped them. All you had to say was, ‘No.’” -V
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers.” -Thomas Pynchon “All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith “Why throw money at problems? That's what money is for. Should the nation's wealth be redistributed? It has been and continues to be redistributed to a few people in a manner strikingly unhelpful.” -Kurt Vonnegut “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” -John Steinbeck “If you took the most ardent revolutionary, vested him in absolute power, within a year he would be worse than the Tsar himself.” -Mikhail Bakunin “In all history, there is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.” -Sun Tzu “...pero Capitán, obedecer por obedecer, así, sin pensarlo... sólo lo hacen gentes como usted, Capitán.” -Dr Ferreiro, Pan’s Labyrinth “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.” -William Blake “Yeah, you really got my act down good, guys. That'll be great. ‘You know, when I’m done ranting about elite power that rules the planet under a totalitarian government that uses the media in order to keep people stupid, my throat gets parched! That’s why I drink Orange Drink.’” -Bill Hicks

It's not certain there will even be a release. Last year's Symphonic Legends isn't getting a CD release at all for example (which really sucks, as the concert included a 35-minute Zelda medley that deserves to be released in high quality).
Although from interviews it seems that for some reason, Nintendo is a bit more anal about this. That was also the reason there weren't any composers available for an autograph session at Legends despite the fact Koji Kondo seemed to wanna go.

I do expect there to be a release for this but it might take a while...the SymFantasies CD was out a whole year after the concert.

By the way, Symphonic Fantasies will be performed again in July 2012.
So if anyone has plans to check out Germany and Cologne in particular, that'd be the time.

Not sure if this has been posted already elsewhere, but there will be another Symphonic Odysseys concert in London this June. Tickets go on sale today at 10:00 GMT – seven hours from now. £30-65, plus £10 if you want to attend a "pre-concert talk" with Uematsu, where he'll "discuss his career and take questions from the audience". More information.